Security Resilience

CVE-2023-52434

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 5.3 – 5.4.277

Published
20 February 2024
Modified
04 August 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 8.1
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.010 63th percentile
Risk Priority 62 floored blend · peak EPSS

CVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.

Summary

CVE-2023-52434 is a high-severity Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory Buffer (CWE-119) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 8.1 (High).

Operationally, ranked in the top 37% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: smb: client: fix potential OOBs in smb2_parse_contexts() Validate offsets and lengths before dereferencing create contexts in smb2_parse_contexts(). This fixes following oops when accessing invalid create contexts from server: BUG: unable…

more

to handle page fault for address: ffff8881178d8cc3 #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 4a01067 P4D 4a01067 PUD 0 Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI CPU: 3 PID: 1736 Comm: mount.cifs Not tainted 6.7.0-rc4 #1 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.16.2-3-gd478f380-rebuilt.opensuse.org 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:smb2_parse_contexts+0xa0/0x3a0 [cifs] Code: f8 10 75 13 48 b8 93 ad 25 50 9c b4 11 e7 49 39 06 0f 84 d2 00 00 00 8b 45 00 85 c0 74 61 41 29 c5 48 01 c5 41 83 fd 0f 76 55 <0f> b7 7d 04 0f b7 45 06 4c 8d 74 3d 00 66 83 f8 04 75 bc ba 04 00 RSP: 0018:ffffc900007939e0 EFLAGS: 00010216 RAX: ffffc90000793c78 RBX: ffff8880180cc000 RCX: ffffc90000793c90 RDX: ffffc90000793cc0 RSI: ffff8880178d8cc0 RDI: ffff8880180cc000 RBP: ffff8881178d8cbf R08: ffffc90000793c22 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: ffff8880180cc000 R11: 0000000000000024 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 0000000000000020 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: ffffc90000793c22 FS: 00007f873753cbc0(0000) GS:ffff88806bc00000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: ffff8881178d8cc3 CR3: 00000000181ca000 CR4: 0000000000750ef0 PKRU: 55555554 Call Trace: <TASK> ? __die+0x23/0x70 ? page_fault_oops+0x181/0x480 ? search_module_extables+0x19/0x60 ? srso_alias_return_thunk+0x5/0xfbef5 ? exc_page_fault+0x1b6/0x1c0 ? asm_exc_page_fault+0x26/0x30 ? smb2_parse_contexts+0xa0/0x3a0 [cifs] SMB2_open+0x38d/0x5f0 [cifs] ? smb2_is_path_accessible+0x138/0x260 [cifs] smb2_is_path_accessible+0x138/0x260 [cifs] cifs_is_path_remote+0x8d/0x230 [cifs] cifs_mount+0x7e/0x350 [cifs] cifs_smb3_do_mount+0x128/0x780 [cifs] smb3_get_tree+0xd9/0x290 [cifs] vfs_get_tree+0x2c/0x100 ? capable+0x37/0x70 path_mount+0x2d7/0xb80 ? srso_alias_return_thunk+0x5/0xfbef5 ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x44/0x60 __x64_sys_mount+0x11a/0x150 do_syscall_64+0x47/0xf0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x6f/0x77 RIP: 0033:0x7f8737657b1e

CWE(s)

Related Threats

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Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
6.7 · 5.3 — 5.4.277 · 5.5 — 5.10.211 · 5.11 — 5.15.150
debian
debian linux
10.0

Mitigating Controls

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Secure engineering principles require memory-safe design and coding that structurally avoids buffer-boundary violations.

Input validation directly enforces bounds checking that stops out-of-bounds reads/writes from being introduced or reached.

Memory protection restricts exploitation impact of buffer overflows without eliminating the underlying coding flaw.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

blocks

A.8.25 mandates secure SDLC practices (secure coding guidelines, security requirements, testing including code scans and penetration tests, developer training) that reach buffer management and can stop many buffer overruns from reaching production, but leaves a bounded remainder (e.g. flaws in non-software components, incomplete enforcement of guidelines, or post-deployment changes)

blocks

Application security requirements can specify memory-safety rules, but do not prescribe implementation details.

blocks

A.8.27 mandates security-by-design principles (e.g. least privilege, fail securely, distrust external input, hardening) plus design reviews that can catch and stop buffer-boundary errors before they reach code, but this is only one minority slice of CWE-119's broad surface (language-specific flaws, unsafe library use, compiler/runtime mitigations, and post-deployment instances remain outside its direct scope).

prevents

Secure coding standards explicitly forbid unsafe buffer operations, directly eliminating CWE-119.

finds

Security testing in development catches out-of-bounds accesses before release, covering most instances of the weakness.

Hardening callouts derived

DISA STIG baselines are authored against specific weaknesses. Where this CVE cites a broad weakness class, the mapping is not asserted at that abstraction (owner ruling, 2026-09-25: grade only at Base and below), so no rule is shown here rather than a rule shown against the wrong grain.

  • No fine-grained STIG row for CWE-119, a class-level weakness. Rules are authored against its narrower children: CWE-823.

References